The position for women in Ugandan society could be considered one of power - lessness: influenced by a range of factors including social norms and practices that prevent their full participation in the world of work (WoW), inequitable gender paygaps, and a variety of barriers in women’s professional and personal lives. In order to better understand how to change these social norms and facilitate women’s equitable inclusion in the WoW, UN-Habitat undertook a policy analysis at the municipal level in Uganda on existing national and municipal policies, laws and frameworks. 

The study also resonates with the gender-responsive nature of the recently adopt - ed New Urban Agenda (NUA), which has been adopted to guide urban centres. This is to occur, “by ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal rights in all fields and in leadership at all levels of decision-making; by ensuring decent work and equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value, for all women; and by pre - venting and eliminating all forms of discrimination, violence and harassment against women and girls in private and public spaces”

In 2012, UN-Habitat established the Advisory Group on gender issues (AGGI) as an independent body to advise the Executive Director on all issues related to gender in the agency's work. One of the first requests of AGGI members was for a document informing the organisation's current gender work. This gender history is commissioned by UN-Habitat in response to AGGI's request. Many past and present staff members and partners of UN-Habitat have contributed through availing documents, giving interviews, writing text and making comments.

This survey report is part of the Safer Cities Nairobi Project aiming at shedding light on the hidden problem of violence against women, and to address the gaps of information that persist on this subject.

The publication highlights the main forms of abuse experienced by women in Nairobi, the socio-economic characteristics of both the victims and the perpetrators; the impacts of abuse on the victims; the types of services and assistance that victims turn to; their suggestions to improve these services; their suggestions for government action; and, their suggested ways forward to make Nairobi a safer place.

This Policy and Plan for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women for 2014-19 (PPG) sets out UN-Habitat’s commitment and strategy to ensure that all its activities reflect and advance the global consensus on non-discrimination and equality between men and women.

It provides the means by which UN-Habitat will collaborate with
national and city authorities, and civil society, so that the knowledge, skill and experience of both men and women are included in all aspects of urban development, both as a matter of equality and equity, and so that no resources are overlooked in the quest for inclusive and sustainable urban governance, planning, economic management and basic service delivery

More than half of the World’s population live in cities and that figure is expected to increase to almost 5 billion by 2030. This increase in urban population and changing understandings around how people experience urban living, and thus how planning and governance arrangements must be operationalized, calls on urban policy makers to recognize and respond to the emerging and different needs, concerns and interests of urban women, men, boys and girls.

Urbanisation affects women and men in fundamentally different ways given the social differences or roles allotted to women and to men. Since these roles are not equally valued they further create inequities between women, girls, boys and men. For urban women and girls, these different experiences and ways of experiencing urban life give rise to consequences that undermine their capabilities and aspirations.

This issue guide focuses attention on Urban Legislation, Land and Governance in order to highlight the “where and how” of gender responsive interventions that strengthen gender equality and women’s empowerment in urban development.

Cities experience large and small scale disasters that can pose great challenges to sustainable development, for natural and human-made disasters have enormous economic, social and political impacts on human lives. “Cities, where half of humanity currently resides and much of the world’s assets are concentrated, are fast becoming the locus for much of [the] destruction and loss from disasters.”  These risks will increase as urban populations continue to grow.

Disasters can present opportunities for transformative change to begin and advance more quickly because the vulnerabilities that emerge as a result of crisis or disaster are clearer and consensus may be obtained more quickly to mitigate vulnerabilities. Population displacements as a result of disasters further create new settlements that present opportunities for planning how municipalities or cities will be managed and planned to cope, in equitable ways, with population changes.

This issue guide focuses attention on Urban Risk Reduction and Rehabilitation in order to broadly outline the where and how of gender responsive interventions to strengthen planned and future actions to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.

What is the Gender Equality Action Plan (GEAP)? The Gender Equality Action Plan (GEAP) is the means to realize the The UN-Habitat Policy and Plan for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in Urban and Human Settlements (2014-19). The GEAP has been developed through a consultative process inclusive of UN-Habitat Gender Equality Unit (GEU), UN-Habitat Gender Focal Points (GFPs), and the Advisory Group on Gender Issues (AGGI). It was finally presented at the annual AGGI meeting held during the World Urban Forum (WUF-7) for review and feedback.

The GEAP is guided by the findings and recommendations of the Evaluation of Gender mainstreaming at UN-Habitat (2011) and Gender Mainstreaming Audit and GEAP 2008-2013 review (2012).

Women, men, girls and boys are differentially affected by the conditions of urbanization. For instance, women are ???invariably disadvantaged compared to men in cities in terms of equal access to employment and shelter, health and education, transport, asset ownership, experiences of urban violence and ability to exercise their rights. These disadvantages are especially marked for poor urban women???1 These gendered dimensions of cities require continual examination if inequalities are to be understood and addressed for equitable and sustainable development. The Research unit can potentially help enhance understanding of this human-urban environment interface from gender perspectives.

This issue guide focuses attention on urban basic services in order to illuminate the effects of gender on equality of access and inclusion in the areas of urban energy, urban transport and water and sanitation. This issue guide further seeks to broadly outline the where and how of gender responsive interventions in order to strengthen planned and future actions that can go a long way to reduce poverty and overcome obstacles to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

While many cities are hubs of economic growth, employment, and cultural life, urbanization has resulted in pronounced socioeconomic inequalities, exclusion, and segregation. The objective of this gender issue guide on urban planning and design is to:

• Increase understanding of gender concerns and needs in urban planning and design;
• Develop capacity to address gender issues in select human settlement areas 
• Encourage integration of gender perspectives into policies, projects, and programmes for sustainable urban development 
• Support institutionalization of the culture of gender mainstreaming and gender equality through the implementation of gender-sensitive projects/programmes and the monitoring of gender mainstreaming progress